The public doesn’t like a blank check. They think this whole bailout idea is nuts. They see fat cats on Wall Street who have raked in zillions for years, now extorting in effect $2,000 to $5,000 from every American family to make up for their own nonfeasance, malfeasance, greed, and just plain stupidity. Wall Street’s request for a blank check comes at the same time most of the public is worried about their jobs and declining wages, and having enough money to pay for gas and food and health insurance, meet their car payments and mortgage payments, and save for their retirement and childrens’ college education. And so the public is asking: Why should Wall Street get bailed out by me when I’m getting screwed?

So if you are a member of Congress, you just might be in a position to demand from Wall Street certain conditions in return for the blank check…

1. The government (i.e. taxpayers) gets an equity stake in every Wall Street financial company proportional to the amount of bad debt that company shoves onto the public. So when and if Wall Street shares rise, taxpayers are rewarded for accepting so much risk.

2. Wall Street executives and directors of Wall Street firms relinquish their current stock options and this year’s other forms of compensation, and agree to future compensation linked to a rolling five-year average of firm profitability. Why should taxpayers feather their already amply-feathered nests?

3. All Wall Street executives immediately cease making campaign contributions to any candidate for public office in this election cycle or next, all Wall Street PACs be closed, and Wall Street lobbyists curtail their activities unless specifically asked for information by policymakers. Why should taxpayers finance Wall Street’s outsized political power – especially when that power is being exercised to get favorable terms from taxpayers?

4. Wall Street firms agree to comply with new regulations over disclosure, capital requirements, conflicts of interest, and market manipulation. The regulations will emerge in ninety days from a bi-partisan working group, to be convened immediately. After all, inadequate regulation and lack of oversight got us into this mess.

5. Wall Street agrees to give bankruptcy judges the authority to modify the terms of primary mortgages, so homeowners have a fighting chance to keep their homes. Why should distressed homeowners lose their homes when Wall Streeters receive taxpayer money that helps them keep their fancy ones?

I’m wondering how many people think that if something is published or recorded either in a book, a newspaper or magazine, shown in a video, broadcast on radio, ( written in a blog [smile] ) or broadcast on television – I wonder, do they think that there is somehow more truth to it?

Do you believe news on television is more reliable in the area of truth than say the spoken word?

Do you think if a book is really old that it is somehow more true than a newer book, especially relating to religious beliefs?

Say you read a story in the newspaper and then hear the same story on TV but the story’s are a bit different, say some guy is accused of hit and run on TV but the newspaper accused the mans wife? Which do believe?

Say someone tells you a book they have read is the gospel truth or say someone tells you it is the word of God, will you believe them? Do you ever wonder how it is that they would know this as fact?

Do you think if more people believe something that that somehow makes what they believe more true, i.e. that the majority is somehow more right?

Remember at one time everyone thought the world was flat and it was only one man who said it was round. Now, you would be thought of as an idiot if you really thought the world was flat. Yet how do you know that many hundreds of years from now, people might not disprove and find laughable some belief everyone now-a-days currently believes to be true? Or, is it possible that people in the future will be the deluded ones, in which case, are you really sure the world is round?